The third question:

Question 3

BEFORE I THOUGHT I KNEW ABOUT LIFE, BUT THEN I REALIZED THAT IT WAS JUST BELIEFS. THE MORE I GET INTO IT, THE MORE I COME TO KNOW THAT I DON'T KNOW. I CAME WITH ALMOST NO DOUBTS ABOUT YOU, BUT NOW DOUBTS ARISE. I HAD A TALK WITH SOMEBODY WHO KNOWS A LOT ABOUT THE MIND: HE SAID THAT MOST OF YOUR WAYS ARE WAYS OF BRAINWASHING. BUT I LOVE YOU, OSHO, AND I OFTEN SAY TO MYSELF, "TAKE THE RISK. YOU MAY SUCCEED, YOU MAY FAIL, BUT DON'T GET STUCK.... BE COURAGEOUS... THAT IS THE PRICE YOU HAVE TO PAY."

I AM CONFUSED OSHO, BUT I WILL FIGHT MY FEAR AND HOPEFULLY TAKE THE JUMP... THE REAL JUMP. ARE YOU REALLY USING BRAINWASHING. IF YES, WHY?

Why are you so afraid of brainwashing? Washing is always good. Are you some kind of hippie or something?

I have heard two stories.

One:

Two hippies were sitting before a church. And then came an ambulance and the priest was brought out on a stretcher.

One hippie asked the other, "What is the matter? What has happened to this old cat?"

The other said, "When he was coming out of his bath, he slipped, fell down, and he has broken his leg."

There was silence for a few moments. Then the other asked, "But what is a bath?"

And the first one said, "How am I to know? Am I a Catholic?"

The other story:

A father was very angry with his son. In his anger he dragged him to the haircutters, he forced him. His hair, his beard, were removed. And then the father said, "My God! So I have been bringing up somebody else's son!"

The third story:

A hippie was brought to a hospital, dragged, forced. An operation was absolutely necessary to save his life. He was shouting like anything. He wanted to escape because he said, "I don't believe in allopathy! I believe in acupuncture, I believe in homeopathy, I believe in naturopathy! I don't believe in allopathy!" But his parents forced him.

The doctors said that first he had to be given a good bath: "He stinks, and it will be difficult to operate on him." So he was taken to the bathroom and given a good rub and a good bath.

When he came out he said, "My God! I was so afraid of this operation!"

Now why are you so afraid of mind-wash? It will cleanse you! A brainwash is a good thing. You need it! You are carrying so much rubbish in your brain; don't you ever think it needs a good washing? Yes, exactly, that's what I'm doing here.

You have been conditioned by the society and you have to be un-conditioned.... That's what a brainwash is. But there is a difference. Mao also did it, I am also doing it, but there is a great difference. Mao used brainwashing just to re-condition you. He un-conditioned you, but the goal was not un-conditioning, the goal was re-conditioning: you have to be conditioned as a communist. Perhaps you were conditioned as a Catholic, as a Hindu: you have to be un-conditioned as a Catholic and re-conditioned as a communist. Naturally, if something has to be written on your brain, first all that is already written there has to be scrapped.

I am also using brainwash -- as Buddha used, as Christ used -- with a difference; it is not the same as Mao's. The difference is I simply wash your brain and leave it there. I don't write anything on it, I simply leave it clean. I Leave you un-conditioned.

In fact, that is your fear: you are not afraid of being brainwashed, you are afraid of being left clean. You would like to be re-conditioned immediately so you have another prop, another thing to cling to, another philosophy to believe in. I don't give you any philosophy to believe in. I simply destroy all philosophies and leave you alone. That is freedom! But that is always frightening: then you have nothing to cling to, then you have nothing to lean on. Then you are left in an abyss. I call that abyss God -- a bottomless abyss it is. I leave you in that state of ignorance, but ignorance is innocence.

You are not so worried, actually, about my un-conditioning you, about your brainwash. You are worried that if you are Left there in innocence, how will you act? how will you perform your life? how will you do things? You have always depended on the conditioning. That conditioning has given you a certain identity -- a Hindu, a Mohammedan, a Christian. You know who you are. You know where to look when the need arises: go into the church or look into the Bible or consult the priest. You know where to go when there is some problem.

I will leave you utterly helpless. You will not know w here to go. I will take the church and the Bible and the Koran away from you, and I will not replace it.

But that is the real work always done by the Buddhas: they leave you alone. And if you are courageous enough to be alone, in that helplessness,'for the first time you start growing. In that state of innocence for the first time understanding arises. Otherwise, when you depend on knowledge, there is no need for understanding to arise; knowledge goes on playing the role of understanding. When all knowledge is dropped you have to face life without any knowledge. You will have to respond without any past. You will not be able to go into the memory; there will be no memory. You will have to respond here now. You will have to act, immediately. In that action, understanding is born.

Take the risk.

It is risky, but take the risk. In fact, what have you got to lose? What have you got in your brain? Why are you so worried that your brain will be washed? You don't have anything valuable there, it is all junk. And you know it perfectly well! Who else can know it so well? Just sit silently for half an hour and look inside, and you will know your brain, what goes on. It is a mad maniac -- a thousand and one things going on and on, noises, a crowd. What is valuable there?

Once this is gone, your heart will open up. The pretender gone, the real will take possession. The pseudo-coin thrown away, you will search for the real coin. And it is there, inside you. That wisdom is contained by you. That enlightenment is there waiting for you to get fed-up with the head, so that you can look at it. And once you have found wisdom, then you will know what is valuable in life.